Faith is Fallen (Broken Fantasies Series)

Chapter 56

Roderick stepped through the Faery Gate into a world that seemed beyond strange to him. While the Seelie Court had seemed familiar yet just outside his mind's reach, he felt certain he'd never been here before.

While surrounded by trees, they were trees of a species he couldn't identify. He couldn't even say what part of the world he'd come out in. He knew from the people he'd questioned that Cara, the queen's daughter, had come from this direction the last time she'd come home. It was the only Faery Gate he knew of this far into Unseelie territory.

Closing his eyes and reaching out with his senses, he tried to draw on skills he had no memory of utilizing before. The ability sat waiting at the fringes of his mind like an abandoned from, unsure of its welcome. He reached out to it just as hesitantly, unsure on the best method of approaching the task.

"Just let me find her," he whispered to himself, letting everything else drift away.

After a few moments, a sense lit up inside him, like a great beacon. He opened his eyes and realized he'd started walking. The walk turned into a run, and then he stretched his wings, taking off, heedless of the hapless humans who might see him, unconcerned and unknowing that it would be very bad if they did.

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The flight took longer than he expected, having no frame of reference for the distance he felt in his head, only that it was further ahead. He passed trees, buildings of all shapes and sizes, black stone roads unlike any he'd ever seen, and bizarre metal contraptions that moved faster than he could ever hope to fly. Those fascinated him as he passed them. They were large, like carts—some even larger than any cart he'd ever seen, and in every color he could ever imagine. Some were the colors of flowers—reds, blues, yellows—while others even held shades of color he had never seen before. Most seemed to be shades of gold, black, white and silver.

He landed after several hours, when the pulling sensation in his mind proved so intense he couldn't concentrate of his flying anymore. Again in the comfort of trees, he walk forward in a ground-eating pace, almost a victim to this skill inside him. He couldn't have stopped himself to save his life and a small tremor of fear danced in the back of his mind at the thought.

Roderick stepped out of the trees and into a small clearing made up of small, grey stones. A metal contraption sat at rest in the clearing along with four people in various states of disarray. Two sat bleeding from minor cuts, little bits of debris in the hair of the woman. The other two looked to be covered in a light layer of soot from head to toe. Behind them, a building stood partially demolished while a fire still raged above stairs.

As he grew closer, he felt certain that Cara sat among the group, though he knew not which she was. They all tilted theirs heads to him when a single pebble tumbled away from him. Tensing as if anticipating danger, which he supposed would be appropriate considering the state of the building behind them, he continued forward, only realizing he had not bothered to disguise his wings when he noticed several of them scowling at the space directly above his shoulders.

"Roderick," a woman with purple hair and purple eyes said, pleasure crossing her face. She attempted to stand, but the man beside her pulled her into his lap.

"Sit," he barked. "Christ, someone just set a bomb off in your face. Give yourself a minute, will ya'. Or better yet, give me a minute to calm down."

She rolled her eyes. "You always need calming, Daniel. Honestly, how are you ever going to keep up with me?"

The man scowled, but the woman in his lap, presumably Cara, couldn't see it.

"Cara?"

She smiled and nodded, patting the hand of the overprotective behemoth. "And this is Daniel, though you could be forgiven for thinking him nothing more than an animal."

The "animal" growled at her comment—an actual growl—and Roderick couldn't help wondering what the man truly was. He very much doubted a human could make such a noise.

Cara gave her head a pensive tilt. "You don't recognize me."

He shook his head. "No, but I don't recognize many people."

"I'm sure there's an interesting story, but that's not why you're here."

"No, it's not. Your mother calls. She is waging war against your brother."

The man behind her tensed, but she didn't even bat an eye. "It's about time," she said, again trying to get up. This time, the man relented. "What can I do to help?"

Author's Note: It's 2 days to NaNoWriMo and I'm super syked!!!  I finally settled on a cover for my NaNo book, and it is uploaded so you can see it.  It's called Out of Time and Historical Fiction because I couldn't settle on a genre that fit...

And yeah, Into the Fire by Disturbed got an entirely new meaning for me after watching the music video so that I could add it to this chapter.  Consider my mind thoroughly blown...